This invention relates to imaging systems, and more particularly to a method and apparatus for greatly improving the resolution of an imaging system.
High resolution for imaging systems is a problem due to the fact that the high frequency detail of the object diffracts the incident illumination to angles much greater than what the collecting aperture can gather. Because of that a considerable amount of information is lost in most imaging systems. Therefore, the finite size of the primary collector presents a fundamental limitation on the resolving power of any practical imaging system. Since the cost and the practical difficulties involved with building large aperture imaging systems increases with the size of this aperture, it has in the past been of great interest to find alternative means of obtaining a higher resolution with a small aperture. Since the case of an infinitely small collecting aperture is equivalent to the case of not having any imaging components, imaging or scanning of an object in such a case is also of great interest.